PRA CRIT POETRY. SQQ 



Concerning the length of the vowels in Sanscrit 

 verse, since none are ambiguous, it is only necessary 

 to remark, that the comparative length of syllables is 

 determined by the allotment of one instant or mdirii to 

 a short syllable, and two to a long one ; chat a natural- 

 ly short vowel becomes long in prosody when it is 

 followed by a double or conjunct consonant ;* and that 

 the last syllable of a verse is either long or short, ac- 

 cording to the exigence of the metre,t whatever may 

 be its natural length. 



Sanscrit prosody admits two sorts of metre. One 

 governed by the number of syllables; and which is 

 mostly uniform or monoschematic in profane poetry, 

 but altogether arbitrary in variov.s metrical passages of 

 the Vedas. The other is in fact measured by feet like 

 the hexameters of Greek and Lathi : but only one sort 

 of this metre, which is denominated A'rya^ is acknow- 

 ledged to be so regulated ; while another sort is govern- 

 ed by the number of syllabic instants or mdtrds. 



* Or by the nasal termed Anuswara, or the aspirate Visarga. By 

 poetical license, a vowel may be short before certain conjuncts (viz. 

 as in Plate A. Fig. c] This license has been borrowed from 

 Pracrit prosody, by the rules of which a vowel is alh>wed to be 

 sometimes short before any conjunct, as before the nasal: but in- 

 stances of this license occur in classical poems with only four con- 

 juncts as above mentioned; and, even there, emendations of the 

 text have been proposed by criticks to render the verse conformable 

 to the general laws of prosody, (See remarks in the Durghat'a iritti; 

 Cumara.J 



t This rule of prosody is applicable to any verse of th.e tetrastichs : 

 but it is considered by writers on rhetorick inelegant to use the pri- 

 vilege in the uneven verses ; and they thus restrict the rule to the 

 close of the stanzu and of ita half, especially in the more rigid spe- 

 cies of regular metre. 



